The doughboy of Tulane Avenue will stand his ground. City and state officials have agreed that the small triangular park where the statue of a World War I American soldier has stood for decades will continue to be used as a park, and the statue will remain in the park.

Pershing Park on Tulane Avenue and South Galvez will be turned over to the state, but will remain a park. The WWI doughboy statue, pictured here in 1976, will also remain.The Times-Picayune archive

Although it has gone by various names, the park is officially known as Pershing Place.

The City Council on Thursday endorsed an agreement ending a controversy among the city, the state and fans of the doughboy monument over what will become of the park and the statue.

The problem arose because the wedge-shaped green space at Tulane Avenue and South Galvez Street lies at the edge of the planned campus of the $1.2 billion University Medical Center, the new state teaching and research hospital. State officials requested official sale or transfer of its ownership from the city to the state.

Both the Mid-City Neighborhood Organization and the Monumental Task Committee, a group dedicated to preserving and refurbishing public statues in New Orleans, expressed opposition to the state's request.

The park, a block long and tapering down from 75 feet to 28 feet wide, has been a public space since at least the 1880s. Long known as Tulane Park, it was renamed Pershing Place in 1965, but it is still better known to some residents as Billy Goat or Nanny Goat Park, probably because goats once grazed there or because neighborhood children drove their goat carts there.

The grass-covered park contains a 1970 statue of a World War I doughboy holding a rifle in one hand and a grenade in the other. It also has three park benches, a date palm tree and a rusted flagpole.

Plans for the new hospital once indicated that a possible future clinic building would encroach onto the park, but that is no longer true. State officials told the city months ago that the park would remain open space and that the city-owned statue could also remain, although the Department of Veterans Affairs wanted to move it to the new VA Medical Center's campus across Galvez Street.

That did not satisfy some Mid-City residents, who said the new hospital won't need the park space, at the extreme edge of its campus, and that the park and statue should remain under city control. State representatives replied that even though the site will remain open space, the corner of Tulane and Galvez will be an important access point for the new hospital and they intended to erect a sign there.

An ordinance approved 7-0 by the council Thursday authorizes the city to sell the park to the state for $97,767, with the requirements that the land will continue to be used as a public park and that the doughboy statue will remain there and "viewable by the public."

If the state decides to use the space for some other purpose, it must turn over the statue and compensate the city "for the increase in value of the parcel based upon the change in use."

The statue may be temporarily removed during construction of the hospital, officials said.